End of a mystery

09:36 pm December 16th, 2005

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boutell


	End of a mystery
	I've reported mysteriously crappy levels of noise with my shiny new SM58 microphone. Numerous people offered much-appreciated and well-informed theories on the matter. But only merde, who walks on rose-scented water and shoots saffron from her fingertips, was correct. I asked the salesperson at Musician's Friend to give me the right cable to hook up to my laptop. She sold me an XLR to quarter-inch cable, explaining that they didn't have the quarter- to eighth-inch adapter in stock but any Radio Shack would. Okay, fine. Except that the cable makes no effort to do anything but crudely hook the two things together. It doesn't correct for impedance at all. It's roughly like hooking up a car battery to a vibrator... no, no, wrong analogy, but anyway it's a bad plan. Meredith told me to go to Radio Shack and pick up a "hi-z unbalanced to lo-z balanced" XLR to quarter-inch adapter for, like, ten bucks. And I did. And now there's virtually no noise at all. You can hear me suck really really clearly. Thanks merde, you rock! Eat a bug! Tags: audio, geek, guitar

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	Comments

	From: nothings	Date: December 17th, 2005 03:51 am (UTC)		(Link)

SSC: I probably have 10x the studio/recording equipment as merde, but I could never have told you that answer. (I wouldn't have been surprised at the problem, but I would have had no clue how to fix it.)

(Unimportantly, did you describe it right? You seem to have lost a quarter-to-eighth conversion in there, and isn't it the XLR that's balanced and the quarter-inch/eight-inch that's not? See what I mean about having no clue?)

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	From: merde	Date: December 17th, 2005 07:27 am (UTC)		(Link)

depends which way round you're looking at it. the mike end is lo-Z balanced, the computer end is hi-Z unbalanced. and the adapter also serves as a 3-pin to 1/4" adapter. slap a 1/4" to 1/8" adapter on the end and you're all set.

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	From: nothings	Date: December 17th, 2005 07:32 am (UTC)		(Link)

Oh, right, you can just use the same 1/4"-1/8" as in the rough version.

But ok, it is lo-z-balanced-xlr to hi-z-unbalanced-1/4; Tom's phrasing reversed the parallelism, and since, like I said, I'm not actually too knowledgeable about this stuff, I wasn't positive!

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	From: merde	Date: December 17th, 2005 08:06 am (UTC)		(Link)

i have to admit, i really am surprised nobody else knew this. i thought everybody knew that 1/4" lines are unbalanced.

then again, i also thought everybody knew how to change a tire. or a fuse. or a baby. and those are all way easier than impedance conversion.

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	From: nothings	Date: December 17th, 2005 08:33 am (UTC)		(Link)

I know balanced from unbalanced; I don't know hi from lo z.

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	From: boutell	Date: December 17th, 2005 03:06 pm (UTC)		(Link)

I think the issue is more that nobody imagined mainstream companies were out there shamelessly peddling cables that connect things but don't really.

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	From: merde	Date: December 17th, 2005 07:20 am (UTC)		(Link)
	takes a bow

*crunch* *splat*

ate a bug, i rock, you suck, &c.

i learned everything i know about audio from the redoubtable

madbodger.

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User: boutell Name: Tom Boutell Website: Goode Trouble

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merde *takes a bow*